Georges Seurat was born in Paris, France on December 2, 1859. Seurat's father Antoine-Chrisostome spent most his time in a cottage in Le Raincy, and his mother Ernestine Faivre raised Seurat and his siblings in Paris. Seurat began to draw at an early age, and in 1875, he took a course with sculptor Justin Lequien. Several years later, Seurat enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and studied with Henri Lehmann. Seurat remained at the school for two years, during which time he discovered a book entitled Essai sur les signes inconditionnels de l'art (Essay on the Unmistakable Signs of Art) by Humbert de Superville. This discovery of the relationship between lines and images became the inspiration for Seurat's entire career.
Seurat left the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1879 to perform his military service in Brest. While in Brest, Seurat drew scenes of the beaches and sea. He returned to Paris the following year and studied again with Lehmann. However, Seurat's style was unconventional, and he soon broke with the school. At this time, Seurat shared a studio with another painter, Edmond-Francois Aman-Jean, and in 1881, the two traveled to the island of La Grande Jatte. It was here that Seurat received the inspiration for many of his future works. Seurat's first official exhibition at the Salon in Paris took place in 1883, but the next year his painting "Une Baignade, Asnieres" was refused by the jury. As a result, Seurat exhibited with the foundation of the Groupe des Artistes Independants, who promoted the development of modern art. During the next year, Seurat worked on an immense painting entitled "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte." The final painting was preceded by more than 200 drawings and oil studies. He completed the almost mural-sized work in 1886, and it was displayed with great interest at an Impressionist art show from May 15 to June 15.
In 1887, Seurat began working on his final large composition entitled "Les Poseuses." He completed it the following year along with another work entitled "La Parade." During 1888 and 1889, Seurat exhibited his paintings at the exposition of the Twenty (XX) in Brussels and in the Salon des Independants in Paris. During this time, Seurat lived with his mistress, Madeleine Knobloch, and on February 16, 1890, they had a son Pierre-Georges Seurat. In 1890, Seurat began to work on what became his final painting, "Le Cirque." Although the painting was incomplete, Seurat exhibited it at the Salon des Independants. While Seurat helped organize the exhibit, he became ill due to exhaustion. Before the exhibit ended, died on March 29, 1891. He was 31 years old.
In all, Seurat completed seven major paintings, 40 smaller paintings or sketches, and approximately 500 drawings. The Pointillism technique, in which small dots of color are grouped to create a vibrant work, that Seurat introduced was adopted by his followers, the Neo-Impressionists.

● Van Gough and Georges Seurat ●

It was in 1886 and 1887, the years Van Gogh lived in Paris, that Seurat became a principal figure in the avant-garde. Vincent recognized his importance and, later, referred to Seurat as "undoubtedly" the leader of the "Petit Boulevard" artists, his own name for a new generation of young artists. Some of these painters met in November 1887, and began exhibiting together shortly thereafter. Seurat's influence on Van Gogh is unmistakable: the latter experimented with the same subjects, painting techniques and color combinations. Although Van Gogh later developed his own style, he continued to admire Seurat. In one of his letters from the south of France he expressed a wish for "one of his painted studies." This small panel is a welcome addition to the Van Gogh Museum's collection.

● La Grande Jatte ●

If someone were to ask you to name the most important painting of the twentieth century, which one would you choose? Guernica? Les Demoiselles d'Avignon? Something by Pollock, perhaps? Almost certainly it would be something from the first fifty years of the century, when painting still ruled the world of art. Very well, I'll admit, such a question is not only difficult, perhaps even impossible, certainly unfair, but also good for a long, heated argument if posed in the right group of people. Very well then, let me ask a somewhat easier one. What do you think was the most important painting of the nineteenth century? You're probably asking, how is that any less difficult? In fact, there was far more important painting done during the nineteenth century than the twentieth. It was the century of the painter, when painting reached its zenith as a communicative art form. It was a century that may have seen more working painters and more outstanding painters than any before or since - Michelangelo, Caravaggio, Rembrandt, Picasso, and Jim Lane notwithstanding. It was a century that began with David and ended with Cezanne. It was the century of Ingres, of Courbet, of Manet, of Monet, of van Gogh, and of Georges Pierre Seurat.
I would choose A Sunday on La Grande Jatte by the ever patient Monsieur Seurat of Paris, France. Notice here I'm not saying it's the best painting of the century (although it is a superb piece of work) nor is it the most beautiful (although it is, in fact, quite stunning). It hangs today in the Art Institute of Chicago and, along with American Gothic and The Night Hawks, competes in being their most famous work. Of the three, it's certainly the most massive, weighing in at some seven feet tall and ten feet wide; and, if the good old Yankee work ethic means anything, it easily wins as the most laborious work since Michelangelo took up ceiling decoration. Its size is the direct result of a bad experience Seurat had with a similar, earlier work, Bathing at Asnieres, which was so radical and disconcerting at the time, his fellow disconcerting radicals who hung Salon des Refuses ended up placing it behind a door in a poorly lit side room of the main Salon.
Not only was La Grande Jatte too big to hide behind most doors in Paris, it was too big to be ignored by the Paris art world. If Impressionism had shaken up the art world of its day, this epic work shook up Impressionism. Theoretically, it was Impressionism made law. It was Impressionism laid down in red, yellow, blue, white, and (gasp) black. But it was such a departure from the spirit of impressionism, the in plein air, natural, fresh, spontaneity of the movement, that it was, in fact, a whole new movement, which has since come to be known as Neo-Impressionism (not to be confused with the broader Post-Impressionism of which it was merely the first step). It had in common with the Impressionism of its day its rather mundane subject matter - a sunny Sunday afternoon in the park. And, despite Seurat's having overcome the Impressionists' allergy to black, it reflected prevailing Impressionist colour theory. But there the similarities ended. Whereas most Impressionist works were modest, one-sitting, portable easel paintings, this sucker was mural size and took just over two years to produce (working night and day at that)!
Despite his secretive, workaholic devotion to his art, Seurat painted only about a dozen works (he died young, at the age of 32). Yet, primarily with this one work (by far his best), he managed to change the whole direction of art, not so much in his own century but in the one to follow. The phrase hadn't even been invented yet, but this could well be considered the first "art for art's sake" painting in the history of art. Though the artist was fond of the park and visited it often in his childhood, as well as in making preliminary studies (which the Art Institute proudly displays), the subject was merely a source of design inspiration - a means to an end. It communicates little about its time and place other than the high fashion and the sedate relaxation of the Parisian populace. Instead, it is the shimmering, dotted, divisionalism or Pointillism (as it's more popularly called) that was its reason for existence. In fact, it was a science experiment in painting with forms simplified, abstracted, and sublimated to the cause of colour theory, mass, space, balance, and visual texture.
Few paintings of its century could claim such a breakthrough, and none could claim to have explored what amounted to a whole new type of painting so deeply or so completely. Yet strangely, Seurat inspired few direct followers other than his colleague, Paul Signac (whose contribution was to move Pointillism still further from relative objectivity). Seurat's true followers were not Pointillists (the technique was too laborious to be economically viable). His true followers were artists such as Matisse, Picasso, Kandinsky, Miro, and others in the twentieth century who, while digesting his analytic exploration of colour, drew their most profound influence from his willingness to elevate various design elements to dominance in their work, leading ultimately to the exclusion of subjective content. A Sunday on La Grande Jatte was painted between the years 1884 and 1886. It was a natural, evolutionary step following Impressionism, but at the same time, in its importance as a harbinger of twentieth century art, it was at least twenty years ahead of its time. If for no other reason, that makes it, in my view, the most important single painting of the nineteenth century.
From HumanitiesWeb.org : Contributed by Jim Lane - 22 December 2001